Less than two weeks after Melbourne’s new venue, The Hummingbird, opened its doors, it has been forced to take on a new name following legal action launched by another Victorian venue.

Just under a month ago, we reported on how Melbourne was set to receive a new venue on May 2nd. Named The Hummingbird, the venue, which is located in St. Kilda’s Newmarket Hotel and aims to deliver a wide variety of musical styles including jazz, funk, and comedy, kicked off its first night of existence with a bang, but it was forced to close just two days later.

On May 4th, the venue was forced to briefly close after a small fire broke out on the premises. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but that’s all the bad luck that was set to come their way, right? Well…

On Tuesday, May 8th, The Hummingbird was served a cease and desist notice to stop using its name by lawyers of Bird’s Basement Pty Ltd, a Melbourne venue owned by property developer Mr. Abert Dadon.

The letter they received states that Bird’s Basement is the only jazz venue in Australia that can claim rights to use of the word ‘bird’ in its name in relation to a venue that holds performances of jazz music and similarly styled entertainment.

“We are not in fact a jazz venue, but rather an entertainment venue of varied genres,” explained venue owner Heather Para. “However having booked the artists alongside Mr. Dadon at Birds Basement for two years I can now understand how this may have been misconstrued. We are agreeable to changing the name on this basis to alleviate his concerns and assure that we have no wish for our venue to be confused with Bird’s Basement.”

“So after our baptism by fire, this week bought us the case and desist Intellectual Property claim to consider.”

“Creating this venue is a labour of love and we consider this new challenge another milestone and we won’t be thrown off course,” Ms. Para continued. “Whilst to an extent we are flattered by the attention, we don’t wish to be distracted when we are on a clear path to success, so we are making the changes immediately and humbly apologise to anyone who may have been confused by our name.”

As a result of this legal action, the venue’s owners have now decided rename the nightspot as The Fyrefly. We’re sure there’s something that could be said about a phoenix rising from the ashes, but considering the venue-owners’ decision to keep away from names of an avian variety, we’ll just keep quiet and check out the newly-named location at St. Kilda’s Newmarket Hotel.

The article was originally published on Tone Deaf